It's a Voice
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, day sixty-nine: Mercedes has been bonding with the vocalist from the deaf glee club.


_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a second cycle, and then a third cycle Now here comes cycle 4! :D_

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**"It's a Voice"  
Mercedes/OC-ish Character James  
(Note: He doesn't have a name, so until he does, I'm calling him James, but he's the vocalist from the deaf glee club)**

There was no easy way to explain how he'd affected her, at least not as far as she knew. She just knew she'd never felt the way she had, sitting there, watching him and his club perform. She'd been drawn in by him, added her voice and melded among them. The others had joined in too, but she didn't notice all that much. She was connecting with this boy, and the rest just faded away.

After their performance, the club was to depart, and Mercedes found herself following the boy, whose name she discovered was James. He told her how he could read her lips – and to speak normally, as enunciating only really complicated something simple.

And then he'd said words she had never been on the receiving end of, not in all her life – he asked for her number. He told her that she had a great smile; he'd been presented with it once, after he'd asked for her number… a second time again after he'd complimented said smile.

She'd given him the number. She wasn't expecting anything from it… he might never actually call and, if he did, she didn't know how that would go, his being deaf and all. It was the beauty of technology though. Later, he would explain to her the other system, but for their purposes texting worked perfectly.

He'd first texted her that night. It had carried on from there through nightly series of text conversations. For the most part, they would discuss glee-related matters. After a couple of weeks, they'd met up for an afternoon, just to hang out as friends.

Text messages never presented things as they truly were. They left out a lot of the emotion, and it wasn't until Mercedes and James saw each other again that they saw how much happiness it brought to the other. It was never spoken, but it was true and undeniable – their afternoon hang out had evolved into a first date.

As things had gone in this direction, their second outing had a more date-like aspect. James was proper and gentlemanly the whole way through. He'd picked up Mercedes at home – for once, she was battling some heavy duty butterflies in her stomach. His being so sweet did not help her fight them off.

James had given the date some thought, which Mercedes had found to continue to make her smile. Her favorite part though was dinner. The tables each had small bowls with a lit candle. As their table was set against a wall, the candle gave off enough glow to show the shadows of their hands moving about. It had led to James displaying one of his hidden talents/loves, which was to make shadow animals with his hands.

As he explained it, it had started from seeing the shadow of some of his signs. He liked looking at them, and from there, he'd wanted to do more. He'd been doing it since he was eight.

The shadow play he'd put on for Mercedes had made her laugh. He'd make the shadows 'speak.'

They'd gone out a few more times, when Sectionals had rolled around. Neither of them had managed to see one another beyond when they were on the stage for their club's performances. So as everything had unfolded, both Mercedes and James had been thinking of one another. They were able to exchange those thoughts face to face a couple of days later.

There would be awkwardness, she knew it right from before she'd shown up to meet with him. On one side, she could have been upset, because of the cheating, but then they had won, so…

As she arrived, she saw him sitting there… he looked anxious, nervous… he saw her and immediately stood to approach her.

"I didn't know, I promise," he told her. "We only found out after." She gave him a calm nod.

"It's okay. I know you didn't know," she promised him. He nodded, sat back down. She went to sit with him. She made him look over so he'd be able to read her lips. "Sorry about…" He shook his head.

"We deserved to lose." He paused. "We had a good set list going. We might have been better off with it. Instead, we made fools of ourselves."

"Hey, no," she shook her head for emphasis." The only 'fool' in there was your director," she shrugged. That made him smirk. "No offense."

"None taken," he assured. "He did mean well, I think… sometimes he can be more nervous than us. He knows how important the club is, for all of us."

"Yeah, our director sees that too," Mercedes smiled. After a moment, as they'd through the matter of the cheating, he relaxed into a smile and took her hand so she'd look at him again. That he'd taken her hand was a sure fire reason for her to lookup.

"You were really good, your performances."

"Thanks," she beamed. "It was a miracle, let me tell you. We were all nervous wrecks, going in on the fly," she chuckled, then, reminiscing, "When they took my song, my big solo, I was just…" she shook her head.

"I know… I saw you out there," he explained. He took a moment. "You looked great in your dress," he nodded, and she smiled.

"Well, yeah," she brushed off 'dramatically,' before laughing.

It was that right there which had given James the drive to do what he'd wanted to do since they'd exchanged phone numbers. He made her to look at him before kissing her.

She was surprised… If not for the lingering tingle afterward, she would have thought she was dreaming. But she wasn't. He had kissed her… a first kiss, soon followed by a second.

THE END


End file.
